PACIFIC CITY — The picture is breathtaking.
A future bride and groom stand on a rock shaped like a pedestal above the Pacific Ocean. Her dress flows in the wind, he holds her close, and the blue expanse of the Oregon Coast spreads out behind them.
It’s the perfect engagement photograph. And it's become one of the most sought-after images by professional, amateur and iPhone-wielding photographers, many of whom visit after discovering the picture on social media websites such as Instagram.
Just one problem.
The "Pedestal Rock" is on a notorious sandstone bluff at Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area, which is fenced off and bordered by signs warning people not to go there.
A photo posted by Peter Ellens Photography (@peterellens_photography) on
Seven people have died in the area since 2009. Six fatal falls have taken place during the past two years. Rescue efforts by the local fire district and U.S. Coast Guard cost upward of $21,000 per hour, often topping out near $106,000.
Yet people continue to flood past the fence and signs. Adults, teenagers, grandparents, photographers and even parents with small children disregard the warnings.
“We're not seeing much confusion about what the current signs and fence mean,” said Chris Havel, spokesman for the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department. “Even people who are aware of the deaths walk right past the fence and signs into that area. They appear confident that what happened to other people won’t happen to them.”
To help remedy the situation, the department recently assigned a park ranger to patrol the fence. In late July, a task force will present recommendations on improving the fence, signs and public communication.
But combating the allure of that perfect picture — that happy couple perched on a natural pedestal above the ocean — will be no easy task.
"You're supposed to take care of me"
Cape Kiwanda is a beautiful area, and popular for good reason.
Sandy beach stretches to a sparkling ocean where Haystack Rock rises hundreds of feet high. The nearby Pelican Pub and Brewery offers food and ocean views, while dory fishing boats launch from the beach. It’s one of the few places on the coast where visitors can drive onto the sand.
What makes the area unique, and dangerous, is geology. Jutting into the ocean from a large dune, Cape Kiwanda is composed of sandstone that is gradually being destroyed, piece by piece, by ocean currents navigating around Haystack Rock.
Tannish-orange towers, cliffs, caves and bowls are carved in bizarre shapes against the ocean, the creative hand of wind and waves sculpting a landscape that will eventually become an island and someday disappear completely.
A popular hiking trail leads up the cape to the fenceline and warning signs. First built in the 1970s, the fence sits a long way back from the tip of the cape. This creates the belief, according to many park visitors, that they are being fenced off from land that is perfectly safe and home to better views.
Yet the sandstone bluff is anything but stable. Cliffs give out without warning and waves rise quickly, pulling people into the sea.
The seven recent fatalities make this cape the deadliest spot on the Oregon Coast, a place that has brought wrenching heartbreak to families and communities across the Pacific Northwest.
Last summer, 17-year-old Slick Rick Nelson of Sprague High School and his friends left a bonfire on the beach, climbed up the cape and passed through the fence. On a cliff edge, Nelson fell backward, dropping hundreds of feet onto the rocks below. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
At a candlelight vigil in June 2015, Nelson’s little sister knelt before a cross, pleading for her brother to come back.
"You're supposed to take care of me," she screamed. "I'm your baby sister. I didn't get to say goodbye."
But death at Cape Kiwanda is nothing new.
Eleven people died at the cape from 1960 to ’72, and multiple fatalities took place in the '70s, '80s, '90s and 2000s, according to research into old newspaper accounts by Julie Lethin-Keyser, and confirmed by parks officials.
Lethin-Keyser was inspired to the research when her son, Sean Yamaguchi, 22, and his girlfriend, Elise Dickey, 18, drowned at Cape Kiwanda.
Yamaguchi was closing in on a welding degree. Dickey was an artist.
Outcry in the 1970s inspired the first fence at Cape Kiwanda, but shifting sands and high winds made upkeep difficult. The fence was rebuilt in the mid-1990s, but has needed to be fixed multiple times.
More difficult than keeping the fence erected, however, has been convincing people to stay behind it.
Weekend crowds have exploded in Pacific City during the past few years. Upward of 10,000 people cram onto the beach and Cape Kiwanda during summer weekends, said James Oeder, division chief for Nestucca Rural Fire Protection District. The increase has meant more accidents, and more people walking beyond the fence.
“We get calls four to five times per day on busy weekends, for medical emergencies, lost children, loose beach fires, you name it,” Oeder said.
While lost children are one thing, conducting a rescue effort on the sandstone bluff beyond the fence, especially an area known as the Punchbowl, makes Oeder’s blood run cold.
The Punchbowl is a low-lying multicolored sandstone bowl. It sits on the ocean edge, features swirling colors and a sea cave. But that beauty can turn deadly in a matter of moments, as quick-rising seas pull people into a “washing machine where you’re churned around with huge rocks,” Oeder said. “It’s very hard to get out or escape if you get caught.
“Since I started this job in 2009, we’ve only pulled one person out alive.”
Of the six deaths in the past two years, at least half occurred in the Punchbowl.
“I cringe every time I have to send my team in there," he said. “It’s very dangerous because you never know what’s going to happen. It can be empty and then become full of water and very rough within a matter of minutes. The traction is awful.”
On Feb. 2, during a rescue operation in the Punchbowl, two personal watercraft were pulled into the sea cave and two rescuers were injured.
“One of the guys got his knee pretty messed up, but fortunately it wasn’t life-threatening for either of them, and both have been able to continue working,” Oeder said.
The government's cost of rescue efforts is not small.
For first-responding fire districts, the cost is around $600 per hour, and $1,800 to $3,000 for a three- to five-hour rescue, Oeder said. That money comes from the fire district budget.
The cost spikes dramatically when the Coast Guard is involved, which is often the case in serious rescue operations.
The equipment most commonly used by the Coast Guard for a rescue at Cape Kiwanda includes a motorized lifeboat, H-60 Jayhawk helicopter and H-65 Dolphin helicopter, said Petty Officer 1st Class Levi Read, public affairs specialist for the Coast Guard 13th District. The combined price for the three totals around $21,000 per hour, or $63,000 to $105,000 for a three- to five-hour mission.
Civilians will not be billed for the rescue mission, with limited exceptions.
Read emphasized that the Coast Guard doesn’t worry about the price when it comes to saving lives, and people should never hesitate to call for help. Oeder said his agency couldn’t bill a person for a rescue either; although at Cape Kiwanda, he wishes he could.
“If we had the ability to bill a person for a rescue,” Oeder said, Cape Kiwanda "would be the place.”
The spate of deaths led to an emotional town hall meeting in March. A task force was formed that will make recommendations to Lisa Sumption, director of the Oregon Parks and Recreation Department.
As the long-term plan develops, the parks department has added new signs at the bluff indicating the danger. They’ve also added a park ranger who patrols the fence, hoping to limit the number of people who put themselves in danger.
The lure of pedestal rock
Search the social media website Instagram for pictures at Cape Kiwanda, and you’ll be stunned by what you find.
In one picture, a young man hangs off the sandstone cliffs with one arm, the ocean boiling below him. In another, a young man jumps skyward from the Pedestal Rock.
A photo posted by Petr Kosmin (@petr.kosmin) on
The average age of deaths on Cape Kiwanda is 19, which isn’t a surprise. Young people take more risks.
What’s surprising is that it’s not just young people who duck through the fence. The fearlessness covers every age, from small children to grandparents.
The indifference built up over years makes Lisa Stevenson’s job challenging.
Starting last month, the park ranger patrols the fence at Cape Kiwanda. Leading with friendliness and facts, she looks to start a dialogue rather than a confrontation, even when people don’t want to hear it.
She begins many conversations with the facts: Multiple people have died here after crossing the fence. The area is dynamic, changing and unsafe.
Then she appeals to a person’s humanity.
“They might have it in their mind that they are going out to the end of the cape to get that picture they saw online,” Stevenson said. “But I’m trying help them see the bigger picture, to understand all the ramifications. That could be a bunch of 12-year-olds watching them from below, who see them go past the fence and say, ‘I want to get the selfie from back there. It must be safe on the other side.’
“I try to reach that side of a person, to help them understand that their example could inspire a child to put themselves in danger.”
Not everyone wants to hear it, however.
Stevenson recalled coming across two young boys — she estimated their ages at 8 and 12 — who’d gone beyond the fence and were playing in the Punchbowl as the tide was starting to rise.
“Big swells were coming in over the sandstone — it was a dangerous place for them to be,” she said. “I called them over to talk to them, but I didn’t see their mother who was watching from above.”
As Stevenson explained the danger, the mother grew enraged and began cursing at Stevenson.
“It was ‘bleep-bleep-bleep. I’m an adult. I don’t care what you say because I’ve been coming here for 20 years,’” Stevenson said. “At that point I’ve done my due diligence. We can’t force people to do anything. All I can say is, ‘Be safe.’
The encounter illustrates one of the most glaring issues in trying to keep people off the bluff: Legally, people can go wherever they please at Cape Kiwanda. It would be exceedingly complex to make it illegal to travel beyond the fence, parks spokesman Havel said, due to public access laws on Oregon beaches. And, anyway, Havel said OPRD tries not to close areas of public land.
“We prefer to inform people of the dangers and leave it up to them to make a good choice,” Havel said. “If we tried to close every place that might be dangerous, we’d have a very different parks system, and I’m not sure it’s one Oregonians would enjoy.”
Even so, most people heeded Stevenson’s message.
On a weekday last month, Stevenson approached people of every age — some who stayed safely behind the fence, and some who’d wandered beyond. The majority were receptive to her message and headed back to safe territory. Many thanked her for providing them with an insight they wouldn’t have otherwise had.
“A lot of the people who come here are from out of the area, and have no idea about the incidents that have occurred here,” Stevenson said.
Yet the lure of the Pedestal Rock endures.
Stevi Sayler, a professional photographer, arrived at Cape Kiwanda with a couple for engagement photographs in late June. Like many who travel here, she’d seen Cape Kiwanda on Instagram and loved the way the tannish-orange sandstone warms the blue of the ocean, along with the natural features like the Pedestal Rock.
“It’s very symmetrical and just draws your eye in,” she said.
Cape Kiwanda has become an increasingly popular place for engagement photographs, which have become big businesses. For many couples, capturing a unique engagement portrait is a prelude to the one-of-a-kind wedding day glamorized in Brides magazine and on reality television. Some couples are willing to pay professional photographers hefty day rates to acquire a magazine-quality image.
What Sayler didn’t know was that the area was fenced off and a place of danger. She and her clients had traveled a long way. They were paying her, in part, to get that magical picture on the Pedestal Rock.
After talking to Stevenson — who explained the danger — they had their doubts.
“We kind of talked it out between us,” Sayler said. “It seemed risky and we definitely considered leaving and not doing it.
“Ultimately, we talked to a lot of people who had been out there, who told us where the dangerous areas were to avoid. The sandstone was dry and it was low tide. We were all pretty athletic. For them, it was very important to their shoot.”
And so they went past the fence and out to the Pedestal Rock. Their actions were legal and the danger was worth the risk, she said, for that wow-factor photo.
“I probably won’t go back,” Sayler said. “Taking two people to a place that could potentially be dangerous, that’s not something I want to do on a regular basis."
And yet …
“The photos turned out really well,” Sayler said. “They loved them.”
Fatal falls at Cape Kiwanda State Natural Area
Feb. 28, 2016: David Lopez, 19, Woodburn.
Feb. 2, 2016: Megan Owens, 17, Marysville, Wash.
July 25, 2015: Elise Dickey, 18, Corvallis
July 25, 2015: Sean Yamaguchi, 22, Corvallis
June 28, 2015: Slick Rick Nelson, 17, Salem.
April 2014: James Alejandro, 25
April 2009: Tyler Robertson, 18, McMinnville
Average age: 19 years old
Zach Urness has been an outdoors writer, photographer and videographer in Oregon for eight years. He is the author of the book “Hiking Southern Oregon” and can be reached at zurness@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 399-6801. Find him on Zach Urness or @ZachsORoutdoors on Twitter.
